4 coworkers including woman on way to Gokarna go missing

Cops baffled as rigorous search operations to locate the associates from Kothrud-based ad-marketing agency, who began journeying to Karnataka in an i10 on Friday night, throw up no clues

Investigations into the case of four missing employees of an advertisement agency based in Kothrud reached a deadlock on Tuesday evening when the Kothrud police’s search and their efforts to trace their location through cell phone towers yielded no fruit.

(From left to right) Firm partner Pranav Lele and his associates Chintan Buch, Sahil Qureshi and Shrutika Chandwani were last spotted at Khed-Shivapur toll plaza around 2 am on Saturday

The four friends were headed towards Gokarn-Mahabaleshwar on Friday night and were reportedly last seen at the Khed Shivapur toll plaza on Saturday at around 2 am. The four persons have been identified as Pranav Lele, Chintan Buch, Sahil Qureshi – all three from Arjun Rekha Apartment in Baner – and Shrutika Chandwani from Maharshinagar.

Lele was one of the partners of the firm while the others were employees. Around 10.30 pm on Friday night, Lele left his home in his silver i20 car (MH12 FY 4510) to pick up his other colleagues. When Lele’s father Ashok tried getting in touch with them but realised that they were untraceable, he filed a ‘missing’ compliant with the police.

Chopper roped in Inspector Shrikant Navale of Kothrud police station said, “We have formed four teams comprising 15 officers and 15 constables to carry out the search operation. The teams are poring over CCTV footage from toll plazas on the Pune-Bangalore highway.

Besides, mobile tower locations have also been checked. Till now, we only know that the missing youths were last seen near Khed-Shivapur. A private chopper was brought in by friends and relatives of the missing persons to help out with the search operations.”

“We have received no credible information about their whereabouts from other city and district police teams. Police are checking various hotels, dhabas, roads and other commercial establishments to find out the foursome’s movements on Saturday. We are trying our best to find out what exactly happened with them,” he said.